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Still.

It's been a year and a half since I have last written on this blog.

A year and a half of being stretched and pulled, built up, humbled, all through stumbling and small, baby steps, struggling and fighting to see grace as it was meant to be seen.

I do not feel as though I have any profound new truths or big growths to show for the last year and a half. I do not find myself full of deep wisdom or steadiness.

Instead it's merely felt like life. Messy, stumbling life. A life in constant, dull throbbing need for the grace of a Savior. For daily grace in daily failure.

I find myself in the tension between deep thanks for what God has blessed me with - home, job, adventures, sweet moments with dear people that choose to love me even at my worst,
and the struggle with restlessness and discontent - in self, in situation, in the slow, painful process of sanctification.

I have held those who have been broken as they cry for hope, crying for a hope only a God they do not know yet can provide, and have been the one held as I seek out a taste of the God I love as I grieve my sin and humanity.

And I always come back to needing grace, wanting to understand it, fighting to take it to heart. How can I learn to trust that God has grace for me? How can I know it in the core of me? How can it be true, when I know better, and I can see my sin, that he still looks on me with compassion of a father to a child still learning.

Instead of falling into the embrace of this Father, the one who has already made me one of his own, I find myself hiding, withdrawing. I run and hide from others, believing that my humanity is too much, too messy, that no one could want to love me if they could truly see my sinfulness. I hide from the God I want the most, believing that he is too disappointed in my constant failure to accept me as his own. Although I already am.

I already am.

You wanted me at my worst.

You loved us when we were your enemies.

How can I not believe you then when you say I have nothing to prove to you?

It speaks of how little I know you, how wary I am of trusting you, if I cannot abide in the depths of your grace.

I am learning. Fighting the feelings of shame that Satan brings when I can't see grace. Trying to move past my own, to be able to share and be to others.

This is where I am after a year a half, much in the same place. Still needing grace, still needing you. Still living daily in the present and the unknown future.
Still being loved by you in small nudges and big graces.
Still being awed by you.

I am still Yours.

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